


memento mori

by Hornet394



Series: AUs in Which I Give Faramir Functioning Parent(s) [4]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, Crack Treated Seriously, Dragons, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, I mean have you seen the hobbit, Sauron makes a guest appearance, Smaug raises Faramir, Stockholm Syndrome, Time Travel Fix-It, dad!smaug, kinda but also kinda not you'll see what I mean, me: a dragon would be a better dad than denethor, that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:27:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28029279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hornet394/pseuds/Hornet394
Summary: Amidst his long slumber, Smaug finds a human baby in the Lonely Mountains.
Relationships: Bard the Bowman/Bard the Bowman's Wife, Faramir (Son of Denethor II) & Smaug, Kinda - Relationship, Éowyn/Faramir (Son of Denethor II)
Series: AUs in Which I Give Faramir Functioning Parent(s) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1803907
Comments: 12
Kudos: 79





	memento mori

**Author's Note:**

> So... here's one of my wilder ideas. Have fun! Largely film-verse - haven't read the book before. But also not really that familiar with the films, I've definitely watched it only like twice this year as opposed to the dozens of times I've watched lotr ever since first lockdown began (insert pippin meme)

i.

Smaug slumbers for eons. That is the nature of dragons, to be subject to the passing of time washing over their scales like water rushing over the precipice of a cliff, disappearing into nothingness with a huge roar. 

ii.

He is the mightiest of all dragons that still roam this part of Middle-Earth. He kills where he wishes and none dare resist. He lays low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today. Then he was but young and tender. Now he is old and strong, strong, strong, and there is none left to contest him in the throne of his own creation.

There is a faint smattering against his muzzle.

iii.

He forces one large eye open, flares his nostrils, and as he rises up gold runs and bounces off his scales like a waterfall. He sees and smells no one. He shifts a claw, shaking off a chalice caught between them. He knows not the passing of time, for a dragon is patient, they can be very patient.

Something touches his hind leg, and he whirls around, announced by the great avalanche of treasure.

A Man-child looks up at him with wide, wide eyes.

iv.

“Ba!” The Man-child shrieks in a tone that Smaug can only understand as happiness. He smells of Smaug and gold. 

“Well...” Smaug hisses, bringing his head closer to the child. " _Thief._ Do you think my ire can be stilled by a babe of your kind?” His hot breath wafts over the child, making him shiver.

He surreptitiously casts his gaze and smell around. “Where are you?” He asks, voice echoing against the chambers, “Man, or Dwarf? Will you not come out and address me? How rude.”

The child shrieks in delight as Smaug’s scales shift underneath his touch.

“There is a very fine line between guest and trespasser.” Smaug hisses out, completely encircling the child. 

v.

Hours pass and the child has fallen asleep, clutching at a large scale. No living thing has made its appearance, and Smaug tires of speaking into emptiness. None of his hoard has been removed from their places, he can tell. The thief has clearly not made their move yet.

Smaug eyes the child with interest. He normally cannot tolerate the presence of any other living being, but the child smells so much like his treasures. A smattering of dark hair, rosy cheeks, fragile as those of the race of Man are. The child will be hungry soon, if the thief does not make an appearance.

_But why should the thief have this child back? After all, the child smells like part of his hoard already. Why not?_

For the first time in years, Smaug shakes out his wings and, with a gentleness he himself did not know he possesses, lifts the sleeping babe up to a stone podium in the center of the treasure room. Then he bursts out of the mountain, a dark shadow against the sunlight.

vi.

The Elvenking leans against his throne, no indication on his face of his true thoughts. His left cheek twitches, and, irritably, he casts a look at his newly instated Captain, a Sylvan elleth named Tauriel. 

“Go to Lake-town.” He instructs. “Find out what has awoken the dragon, and we shall ponder our next step.”

vii.

Smaug follows the smell of gold and curls his claws on the roof, which houses the man who calls himself Master of Lake-town. Boats sail frantically away in the distance, but it will only be a matter of seconds for Smaug to burn them to cinders.

An arrow pings off his jaw, and he casts a big amber eye to a man and a woman. The woman is carrying a young babe, and the man holds a crossbow, making a futile attempt to shield her from Smaug’s attention.

“Excellent.” Smaug purrs, and the word echoes across the whole of Lake-town, sinks into every crevice and covers every boat. “You will do.”

He takes flight again, and amidst the screams and cries, takes away from Lake-town a young couple.

viii.

The desperate wailing of a child ricochets through the destructed walls and doors, filling the Dwarven stronghold of Erebor. The man has stopped beating against the cage of Smaug’s claws, and the woman has stopped weeping.

The child is at the edge of the podium where Smaug had left him, about to teeter off the edge. His face is red and blotchy and he is wailing as much as his tiny lungs allow.

The child’s hands reaches forward and he falls face first into the gold.

ix.

“No!” Smaug shouts as he crashes into the podium, and the man and woman tumble out of his grasp into the gold. Frantically he plunges his muzzle into the gold, and when he emerges there’s a child clinging to his nostrils. He doesn’t dare breathe, lest the heat inside of him burn the fragile skin of the baby.

“A baby.” The woman breathes out dumbly. “There’s a baby there.”

Smaug tries to nudge the baby off onto the podium, but the child, no longer screaming, is instead bawling into Smaug’s nose, clinging onto his nostrils with a deceptively strong grip.

The man clambers onto the podium, Smaug barely resisting the urge to huff as coins bounce into the fabric of his clothes. He manages to pry the boy off from Smaug and brushes away the tears on the child’s face. But still the baby reaches for the dragon and almost falls out of the man’s grip again.

x.

The woman plants her hands on her hips and stares up at him, unafraid, even as she holds the baby up to her breast. “You cannot keep me here against my will like some sort of milking cow!” She yells at him. “I need to eat! My child needs her toys, and clothes! My husband needs to work!”

Smaug’s temper flares and he rears up, throat burning with the desire to unleash his flames. And then the child raises his head from her breast and stares up at him with wide, grey eyes.

xi.

Bard returns to Lake-town with promises of gold for anyone who would help carry his provisions to Erebor, and finds a brave soul who is willing to deliver letters and news to them every week. In a matter of moments his entire life is packed into a few mule carts. The Master arrives at the last minute with a she-elf, who has been sent from the Woodland Realm. He deflects their questions, desperate to hurry back to his wife and child.

The Black Arrow, he hides beneath a loose floorboard.

xii.

The child’s favourite game is to clamber on top of Smaug’s head, and then slide down between his eyes and off the top of his muzzle, before falling into a pile of coins. Smaug fails to see the appeal of it, but he holds still as the tinkling laughter fills the wide, empty halls that he now inhabits.

He is beginning to learn the scent of this child that has inexplicably become part of his hoard, unique and strong, far more enticing than any of the dwarven hoard he had laid claim to. Or perhaps, it is the rest of his treasures that are starting to dull in comparison.

Absent-mindedly he flicks away a large, glowing white gem, watches it tumble down the artificial mountain as the child chases after it, shrieking with glee.

xiii.

Hilda airs out a room that has a significant crack in the wall, so that sunlight still streams in, but it is not large enough that she needs to worry about Sigrid when her child learns how to crawl. The room seems to have been inhabited by someone important before, but she has to throw out all the old linens and cloths. The bedframes and other surfaces remain sturdy, fashioned out of stone, the crafts of Dwarves enduring through the years, even as their inhabitants no longer wander these halls. The sconces glitter in the sunlight. There seems to be an attached kitchen and bathing area that is equally fashioned out of stone. Elegant, strong, but cold, untouched over the years.

When her husband comes alone, with the one brave soul - Percy - within the mountains, she is there to help him move their meagre belongings into the room. The rest of the folk of Lake-town have turned back at the gates, the heat of the dragon palpable through the thick, looming walls.

She is pleased to see that her own linens and cloths fit the space, and the crib rests at the side of the bed. She can finally lay down a still deeply asleep Sigrid, and it feels like a dwelling of Man again. Bard stokes firewood in the kitchen as she tells Percy what provisions he should bring every week. Percy does not stay for a meal, nor does he seem inclined to want to meet the dragon and his child.

“We’re living with a dragon, now.” Bard sighs over their meal. “At least we no longer have to pay for boarding and food.” Hilda tries to joke, and she counts it a success when the corner of her husband’s mouth turn upwards a little.

ix.

She does not tell her husband of the two skeletons she had to move out of the room, while Sigrid was still strapped to her back.

x.

Dragon-child, Hilda calls him. Bard builds a crib and fences on the stone podium that Smaug seems to hover around, and there the dragon-child makes his home. He’s older than Sigrid and doesn’t need late night feedings, at least. Hilda finds the library, and takes some picture books for him. She doesn’t know what language they are in, and there are precious few titles in Westron. She gives them to him all the same.

Every morning Hilda wakes up and watches her husband vanish into the Misty Mountains for firewood and food, and then she brings her early meal down to the stone podium, where she feeds both babies as the dragon lays a distance away, eyes closed. Then the dragon takes them all just outside the mountain, so they can soak in the sun for a bit and the children play with the toys Bard has made them. After supper she reads to them, or sings them songs, and carries Sigrid back to tuck her in, leaving the dragon-child to the dragon.

She ruffles her skirts and pieces of gold and silver always fall off, both babies making a game out of it. Sigrid is beginning to crawl, but the dragon-child has a remarkable dexterity which ensures that he wins every single time. Sigrid does not seem to mind, though, and Hilda very much fears that Smaug would not hesitate to swallow them in an instant if his dragon-child was upset.

The first time she disciplines him it is instinctual; he throws a glob of the soft food at Sigrid’s face, and she instantly bursts into tears. “No!” Hilda yells instinctively. “You do not throw food at people’s faces!”

Smaug shifts in a distance not far away, gold clattering down his scales. 

The dragon-child looks at his goopy hands, and then at a crying Sigrid, and a rapidly paling Hilda. Then he holds up his messy hands to Hilda, and then slaps the goop across his own face. He starts giggling, and then Sigrid is giggling as well, the two babies laughing at a joke that only they know of.

Smaug snorts, and a wisp of smoke emerges and dissipates in the air.

xi.

Smaug is the one privy to his first words. "Very good, child." Smaug says, watching intently as the boy stubbornly reads out loud from the fairytale book word by word. 

His words interlace with Smaug's, ricocheting off the vast stone pillars, crafted by dwarrows of old. Together, they pilfer the knowledge and words that the dwarves have to offer, and he learns his words fuelled by Smaug's own eloquence.

By the time Hilda realizes, the dragon-child is already capable of talking a mile a minute, and is far too demanding and intelligent that Hilda treacherously thinks that it is a good thing, that he is not her child. But what else would she expect from a boy raised by a dragon?

xii.

After the food incident Hilda is less uncertain about chastising the dragon-child. He wilts when scolded, but doesn’t cry or throw a tantrum, just tries and learns. He might even pass as a normal Man, one day.

She had been afraid of Sigrid taking after the dragon-child, or even the dragon himself, but Sigrid has been such a good girl growing up. The two of them are each other's friends and that’s enough for them.

Although, Hilda does hyperventilate the first time she sees Sigrid sliding down the dragon’s back, holding the dragon-child’s hand.

xiii.

The dragon-child is intrigued by Hilda’s growing belly. Bard spends more time inside Erebor, even as he eyes Smaug uncertainly. But the dragon-child is old enough that he can cling to Smaug’s crown, letting the dragon traipse around Erebor on a mighty adventure. Sigrid stomps her feet and throws a tantrum but Bard will not let her on Smaug.

“Child.” The dragon would say as his claws crushed the brittle skeletons of dwarves into fine dust, “This is the greed of dwarves, and the greed of dragons.”

The boy pokes at cobwebbed artifacts and gold, candlesticks and goblets of diamond and silver, but he grows bored easily and begs another story from Smaug as they meander through the winding caverns of the dwarves.

xiv.

For years he is simply _boy,_ until one day Smaug calls him _Faramir_ instead, for he is a jewel sufficient enough for a dragon to give up his entire hoard.

Hilda and Bard share a look at the name, for it is not one that is common for the people of Lake-town. Faramir is a name of nobles and heroes of old, of stories long forgotten in this part of the world.

xv.

Sigrid is quite well-adjusted despite growing up with a dragon and a dragon-child - indeed, other than her complete lack of fear of a gigantic, fire-breathing dragon, she is a normal, obedient girl that Hilda and Bard are proud of. With a second child, now, they are both glad to have Sigrid and Faramir entertain one another, for Bain is a fussy child.

Faramir, however, is an uncontrollable ball of energy and curiosity, and Sigrid is only too happy to run after her only playmate. He and Sigrid play hide and seek all over Erebor, climbing over skeletons and cobwebs and broken swords with too much ease. Often it is Smaug who finds them tuckered out in a corner somewhere, curled up against some old linens.

One day Smaug finds them dozing off in a sitting room, Faramir inside the cold and ashen fireplace, snoring, and Sigrid stretched luxuriously over a settee. A window in the wall lets in gentle sunlight, deceptively peaceful in the times that they live in. A beady eyed raven perches on the sill, watching Smaug’s large head come into view. 

The doorway is too small for him, and after gaining a young charge Smaug is no longer as nonchalant about bringing down the city. Before he leaves to retrieve the humans to come collect the children, he stares at the raven warily. The raven stares back, and finally flies away.

xvi.

When the children are about eight, Sigrid starts developing an interest in sewing and embroidering. Faramir, however, still much prefers climbing up and down Smaug, and quickly loses interest in watching Sigrid and Bain.

Smaug shows him where the libraries are, and there Hilda finds him every day, head buried in old legends and tales.

He learns the common tongue from Hilda and Bard, and Khuzdul and Quenya from the books, with Smaug’s grudging corrections. At night, when Faramir lies awake, unable to sleep, Smaug croons to him in the forgotten language of dragons, dirty and oily and ill in nature and perhaps Faramir has become more dragon than Man, for no fear arises within him.

xvi..

He becomes more thoughtful and quiet, now that his interest in lore and history overshadows his love for adventure and exploration. The podium where he calls home is now stuffed to the brim with books, with barely enough space for his bed to fit. Finally Hilda puts her foot down and has him learn to put the books back to where he had found them, before Sigrid starts thinking that she can leave her clothes around the room without tidying them up.

If he was another being’s child, she thinks grimly, if he was a Man’s child, perhaps he would have been a child that someone could be proud of.

xvii.

Hilda is cleaning Bain’s mouth during supper when she feels a prickling gaze on her. She turns from Bain and freezes. Faramir is staring intently at her, his grey eyes bearing into her very soul. She dares not breathe. 

Finally he shifts his gaze and nods to himself. "You are a good person." He announces, and turns back to his book.

xviii.

Dragons were created by Morgoth. Dragons are, arguably, by nature, not good.

xiv.

Perhaps in another lifetime not so far away Faramir would have been raised accordingly to the ways of the Valar. He will be blessed, or cursed, depending on circumstances, by the gifts of his forefathers and his mother’s Elven heritage. In this lifetime he is nothing but a dragon-child, and it is Smaug he looks up to when there is a word in the book that he doesn’t understand.

xv.

Soon after Tilda is born, Hilda falls deathly ill. The dragon himself has taken notice and stretches his head into the corridor, Faramir riding on his head. The ten year old boy meets Bard’s gaze, lost, helpless, all too fragile, and wordlessly beckons for Bain and Sigrid to come to him, taking Tilda with them.

The dragon leaves Hilda and Bard alone for the next few days.

xvi.

“I don’t know what to do.” Bard falls to his knees in front of the dragon. A ripple of gold falls from the mountain they stand on. “Please.” His hands are trembling, the great archer, the line of Girion, prostrating himself in front of a dragon. The image of his wife, deathly pale.

After a lifetime, Smaug lifts his head up from the gold it had been resting on. “Write to the Elvenking at Greenwood.” The dragon says. “Tell him you will give him the white gems of his in Erebor, if he will have his best healers care for your wife. Take your family with you, and do not enter Erebor ever again. Your deeds here are done, and I shall offer no more hospitality.”

Bard leans forward reverently, a rush of air escaping him with relief, until the gold digs into his forehead and leaves deep imprints.

xvii.

A crash is heard behind them as Bard steers the cart away from Erebor. Bain and Tilda are too busy looking around, having never seen the mountain from the outside, but Sigrid turns back to look at the entrance they had used to get in and out of Erebor. The way is now blocked with rubble, sealed and shut to them forever.

Bard frees one hand to hold her while she cries.

xviii.

“Why did they have to go?” Faramir asks, fingers turning white from the way he is clenching onto Smaug’s horns. 

“They are human, child.” The dragon rumbles. “They could not stay here forever.”

Faramir quiets for a long while, then slides down Smaug and curls up by his claws. “What am I?” He asks quietly.

Smaug nudges him with his snout, blows on his soft dark hair. “You are my hoard.” He answers the boy frankly. “You belong to this mountain, just as I.”

xiv.

Bard feels severely out of place in the towering caverns of Mirkwood. The Elvenking is not looking at him, but is holding the white gems up, surveying them with an intent gaze, yet he bears a strangely detached expression.

“Who are you?” The Elvenking finally says, “Who are you to part a dragon from his hoard?” His gaze is piercing and ageless, his voice timber, bearing down on the Man in front of him. Already the Elvenking’s healers are trying to save Hilda, and the elleth had been more than happy to take care of his three bairns.

“I am nobody.” Bard replies helplessly, yet truthfully, “Just a lucky man who won the favour of Smaug.”

xv.

Faramir becomes even quieter in the absence of the others. It doesn’t concern Smaug regardless, who is accustomed to long periods of solitude. He lets his treasures warm him as the boy leans against his long neck, a thick book in his hand. The books are Faramir’s hoard, Smaug thinks sleepily, and one day he will run out of them to read.

xvi.

“One day, I would like to see all these faraway places.” Faramir tells Smaug. “Gondor, Lothlorien, Harad. I would like to travel there someday. I would like to listen to music. I would like to see the fields of Rohan. If I could fly there, I would.”

“Indeed.” Smaug remarks calmly, Faramir’s expectant look prickling him through his heavy scales.

xvii.

Faramir had discovered the gaping hole in Smaug’s chest as a child. He had stuck his tiny hand in, making Smaug roar and shake him off, startling Hilda and Bard in their chambers.

“What happened?” Faramir asks, oblivious to or perhaps uncaring of the dragon’s rage. Hot air leaves Smaug’s maw as he brings his head down to Faramir’s level. “The audacity of Men.” Smaug drawls, his voice low and lingering.

Now as Bard moves back into his house, he digs up the Black Arrow again, holds it up to the dying sunlight. 

xviii.

Five more years pass. Bard finds himself captain of the town’s archers, the Master determined to squeeze every inch of coin he can off Bard, even though the man insists that there is no returning to the mountain and the accursed treasures the Master desires.

The Elvenking, too, sends him an invitation every year with his own son, Legolas, and the family spends a week in Mirkwood. The Elvenking says it is because the elves enjoy the company of his children, but Bard cannot help but doubt if there is something more, for the way the Elvenking looks at him and Hilda is not a gaze given to friends, but to enemies.

xix.

“Even dwarves will meet their ends.” Smaug rears back waspishly, “Even elves.”

Faramir looks up at him defiantly. “Even dragons?” He asks. Smaug bears his teeth and roars at the impudence of his child, but Faramir does not flinch, just stares up at Smaug resolutely. 

xx.

Smaug keeps half an eye out on Faramir as the boy - almost a man, now, runs around Erebor, some private made-up game he created to entertain himself. Idly Smaug wonders what year it is outside the mountains, what great fell has descended upon the world of Elves and Men. If the darkness he can sense encroaching across the skyline has grown at all. 

Faramir grows tired of Erebor, he knows. Perhaps, he muses, he should fly to the woods of Lorien, burn it down. To Rivendell, perhaps, or the great realms of Men. But the call of the Dwarven gold is still strong, even though it had lost its sheen over the many years. Smaug is sick with dragon-illness and he luxuriates in it.

Yet Faramir has never seemed affected. Perhaps it is because he has grown up among Smaug’s hoard, or perhaps it is because he _is_ part of Smaug’s hoard. Do treasures grow envious of one another? 

xxi.

Smaug startles awake when he feels the Necromancer’s presence in the chambers. Faramir is slower to wake, but obediently scrambles up to hide under Smaug’s wings.

A shadow approaches Smaug, phasing through rock and stairs and leaving no track on the gold except for the dark taint of something familiar to the dragon.

“Greetings, O Smaug the Golden.” The Necromancer hisses in the language they are all familiar with, “I come with an invitation.”

Smaug fixes him with a stare, stretching his muscles subtly. Gold clink against one another. “You come with a heavy request.” He hisses out.

“The treasures of the entire Middle-Earth are for your taking,” The Necromancer answers enticingly, “Far more than what this mountain holds.”

"I don't like him." Faramir says in a small voice. 

The Necromancer visibly startles, to Smaug's glee, but the wraith quickly recovers himself. "Perhaps, a gift for the princeling?" He rasps, and in his hand lies an innocuous ring of old. "A gift of goodwill."

Smaug cocks his head a little. Powerful strength and long life, a tempting bundle for a mortal. Perhaps Faramir will be able to fly. But Smaug is not held by the lesser powers of evil. Perhaps, if it was the One Ring he has heard so much about... He hears Faramir take in a deep, shuddering breath. "I do not want it." The boy says.

The Necromancer clenches his fist and the ring disappears. Smaug rubs his jaw against Faramir gently, and he feels the boy's fingers wrapping around his scales, white-knuckled and desperate.

"Leave here, Lord Sauron." Smaug turns to the Necromancer, rapidly losing interest. "None shall revive Erebor as long as I dwell here. I will burn every man, dwarf, and elf who seeks to take my hoard. I will eviscerate every orc, troll, or wraith. Your battlefield is not one I will fly in."

xxii.

Smaug keeps Faramir close until the darkness has passed. He is no stranger to it, he finds comfort to it, but Faramir is shaken in an unfathomable way, as if the darkness is a taint and nothing more.

"You were dead." The boy is sobbing, "It said I would be so powerful that I could kill you and leave here, but I do not- I want to see the world, but I will not take your power or your life- If that is the price I will not pay it, I will never pay it."

“You are mine.” Smaug sees red and thunders, “Mine! You are my hoard, mine to keep, you are mine!”

Faramir merely sobs.

xxiii.

Some time passes and the Elvenking receives a party of dwarves in his halls. Thranduil wonders if they will fail - if they would court disaster like they had so many years before. But time is ageless in the halls of elves, and the lifespan of dwarves and man are short. 

He has grown quite fond of Man, now, especially of those in Laketown, who labour continuously at the doorsteps of a dragon. Thorin Oakenshield wants to bring back the splendour of his people to Erebor’s halls, yet the people who once dwelled in Dale are no longer there, they no longer need Erebor. This is a dying age.

He questions Oakenshield himself, lets the dwarf who fashions himself king have a last word. But of course the dwarf will have nothing of diplomacy, resorting to insults that barely tickles Thranduil. Nothing really does, not after his wife departed him. He thinks of the gems cradled lovingly in a case in his quarters, that will one day sail with him as he returns home, and extends one last act of goodwill. It is, as expected, turned down ruthlessly.

Thranduil fixes Oakenshield with a cold, patronizing stare. "You are indeed your father's son." He says, his voice echoing in his halls. "The same madness will lay waste to you. For I have already reclaimed what is mine, and merely wished to test you, to see if you are as arrogant and unlikeable as your people had become in the last days of Erebor. Suffice to say you have proven me correct and given me much satisfaction."

A flicker of something passes his face as he takes in Oakenshield’s expressions, sees confusion and realisation and puzzlement and _anger_. “Stay here and rot!” he waves for Oakenshield to be brought back to the dungeons, “One hundred years is a mere blink in the life of an elf! I am patient. I can wait.”

After Oakenshield is roughly escorted out, he turns to Legolas, who has otherwise been watching this exchange with a passive expression. “Dwarves are rather like dragons, don’t you think?” He asks his son.

Legolas tilts his head to one side and says, “At least dragons are tall.”

xxiv.

“You will bring nothing but disaster and destruction to us all!” Bard roars. He should never have helped these dwarves, should have left them to _drown_ where he had found them. But he is drowned out by the raucous crowd, delusional fools _all of them_ to think that helping dwarves fight against a _dragon_ could ever change their lives for the better.

He remembers the childhood tales Hilda had found, the similarities between dwarves and dragons, and despair.

Bard kicks them out of his house with a stony demeanor, not that it matters any to these haughty dwarves, who will go enjoy the hospitality of the Master. Sigrid flings herself at them, tries to stop them. Bain stands next to her, swallowing nervously. “You cannot go!” She insists loudly, frail and strong all the same. “You must not go! You know nothing of what has happened in those mountains, to us!”

“What does a little girl know of this?” Oakenshield says disparagingly, and pushes her aside all too easily. Bard clenches his fists. Hilda draws her daughter to her chest, clutches her shaking son close. 

“Oh mama,” Sigrid sobs, “I miss the mountains. I miss them so much.”

xxv.

Smaug and Faramir are both napping when a faint smattering of sounds rouses Smaug. The boy is still cuddled behind Smaug’s crest, a tall and gangly young Man but still tiny in Smaug’s hold.

With the sound comes a strange scent, entirely unfamiliar, like nothing he had ever smelt before. He shifts slowly, feels the intruder stop and panic as gold cascades down the hills of which they build.

Slowly, slowly, he blinks his eyes open. The intruder tumbles downwards. Smaug sees nothing.

xxvi.

Then commences what may be the most interesting intruder Smaug has ever seen. A creature with many titles, who can turn invisible instantly, who dares _speak_ to a dragon? All Smaug has had in recent years are ravens. 

Of course, he couldn’t expect Faramir to remain asleep as Smaug pursues this creature through the halls, or for him to remain silent.

xxvii.

Bilbo is regretting absolutely everything. If he thought the quips and riddles he had exchanged with the creature in the mountains was terrifying, he is now talking to a _dragon._ Take that, strange creature in the mountains.

Worse, the dragon seemed to find this all to be a very amusing game, as he hisses leisurely, “Tell me, _barrel-ride_ -”

“Can you really ride a barrel? What do you mean by being a Luck-winner?”

Bilbo almost falls back in shock. A person stands up on Smaug’s head, a Big Folk, like Alfrid, the Man from Laketown that had helped them. A youngling, not yet an adult, tall and gangly. His gaze is piercing, as if laying Bilbo bare.

“What is it that you have?” The boy demands. “You have something in your pocket. It makes you disappear.”

Bilbo’s heart skips a beat. “Nothing that would compare to the treasures you have, O... O Smaug the Stupendous, and... and...”

The boy waves a hand impatiently. “Show us. I want to know what it is.”

xxviii.

The Man is fast but Balin is deceptively dexterous. Besides, Erebor is his home. He grew up in these halls. He fought in these halls, and would have died in these halls. Now his life belongs to Thorin Oakenshield, and while the others distract Smaug, Bilbo had pointed out the strange Man-child to him.

So now he is running through Erebor, every touch and every step grounding him as his memories slot into piece one by one. His friends, his brothers, their ashes pave every stone and tile. The dragon has tainted these stones, and Balin will do whatever he can to purge them of it.

xxix.

The Man-child will not stop struggling, even as the edge of Thorin’s axe dig into the fragile skin of his neck. In the sunlight, Bilbo has a proper look at him. Raven dark hair, grey eyes tempered by the ferocity of youth. There is something about him, that despite his youth Bilbo is drawn to think that it is fitting he stands next to Thorin.

Axe against the neck aside, of course. Or the dragon fire boiling in Smaug’s throat, barely constrained, the heat from the dragon’s body washing over them as they stand on the parapet.

Only Thorin would dare threaten a dragon.

Bilbo’s finger glides over the ring in his pocket. He’s been doing it more and more frequently and it’s soothing, comforting in a way that should scare him.

 _Mine_ , some part of his brain screams viciously.

xxx.

“I will _crush_ you, Oakenshield!” Smaug roars. “I will burn down the last of your race until you are _nothing_. My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail is a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!”

xxxi.

“I do not fear you.” Thorin Oakenshield bellows. A crowd gathers underneath his feet. The Elvenking and his entourage, a few brave human souls from Laketown. Bard, the man who tried to reject his birthright over Erebor.

Now he stands in front of the dragon, tight grip on the dragon-child’s hair. He has finally stopped resisting, tired and weary, blood dripping down his throat and down onto stone.

“I will make this your funeral pyre.” The dragon seethes in between his gaping maw, “I will have the world _burn_ just to deny you, Oakenshield, you worthless, whimpering _quim_ . I will reduce all of you to _ashes_ before I give you the satisfaction of vexing me.”

Thorin bares his teeth and growls right back. “If this is to end in fire, then we will all burn together!”

xxxii.

If Smaug really will burn his own- companion, child, this man-child he clearly cares about- if Smaug would really do that just to get at Thorin - Bilbo doesn’t dare think about it any further.

xxxiii.

In the in-between, before the boy hissed at Thorin like a feral beast, and before Thorin held a blade against a defenseless man, held him at the parapet like a prisoner of war, Balin had left Bilbo and Bofur watching over the boy while they led Smaug around Erebor on a wild-goose chase.

Maybe Balin and Bofur had been a bit more rough with the boy than Bilbo would have wanted, but Bilbo knows he’s not of the same cloth as the dwarrows. He’s not a warrior, a fighter. Or even a wander, explorer. Oh yes, perhaps he is now, an explorer. But he’s a storyteller at heart. 

Well. He’s not the one who’s been driven from his home, lost and wandering, who’s lost all his kinsman. But there’s no one around to stop Bilbo from sinking down next to this boy, not a man, and offering some sympathies where the dwarrows would not.

The boy gives him a wary look. He’s tracing idle shapes into the stone underneath him, curled up on himself. 

“Are you a Hobbit?” The boy finally asks. Bofur perks up curiously near the doorway. “I read about you. You’re. Smaller than I imagined.”

“Well,” Bilbo says carefully, not knowing what to say. “Why yes. I am a Hobbit of the Shire.”

The boy just nods, observing him with a critical eye, but falls quiet again. Bofur takes pity on both of them, gentle-hearted always despite the circumstances that had befallen them. “Tell us about the Shire, Bilbo,” He volunteers. “Sing us a song.”

xxxiv.

Two poems later the boy finally speaks again. “It sounds beautiful.” He interjects, voice dry and hoarse. “I’ve always wanted to travel.”

Bilbo and Bofur exchange a look. “How did a wee lad like you get wrapped up with a dragon?” Bofur asks, “You could go wherever you want to go.”

“Why are you here?” The boy returns instead, shifting fully to stare at the two of them. His eyes are a shade of grey that speaks of cloudy days and the sun hidden behind them. 

“This was our home, many ages ago.” Bofur answers, “We’ve come to take it back.”

The boy licks his lips, turns his gaze onto Bilbo, searching. Bilbo shivers. “This is my home too.” The boy tells them resolutely. “I grew up here. I know every stone that paves these halls, every weed that grows in between. Every book on the shelf, the crevices among the walls. We lived here, and we were happy.” His lips curl downwards and his gaze is faraway, his cheeks flushed. “I seek to travel the world and see all of these remarkable things for myself, but it is not travelling if you have no home to return to. You are merely lost.”

xxxv.

In the here and now Bilbo watches on in horror as Thorin requests- no, demands a representative from Laketown, threatens them with their share of the treasure to force them to take a stand against the dragon. 

The Arkenstone burns a hole against his chest. 

He casts his gaze around, looking at Dwalin, Balin, Bofur. Dori, Nori. Ori and Bifur to one side. Kili and Fili, Kili all too pale, Fili all too grim. Bombur, with Oin and Gloin. This is the man they call king? One that would hold innocents hostage, knowing fully that they would be the ones to bear the wrath of the dragon. 

They have sent the Man named Alfrid - Bilbo would perhaps have preferred the steadfast Bard, but the seething glare in the Man’s eyes proves that he desires no part in this. To his side, the Elvenking sits atop his gigantic moose, no less regal amidst the dust and ruins.

“This is not your kingdom.” Thorin declares, “These are dwarf lands, this is dwarf gold, and we _will_ have our revenge!”

  
  


xxxvi.

Bilbo loses focus for a while - he worries, more than he has ever before. The precious cargo he is hiding, the friend who has become someone he no longer recognises, the boy with the grey eyes and a traveller’s soul - he loses focus and can only watch on as disaster unfolds, because there are no good endings, not always, and those who tempt death should not be surprised when death reaches them.

Alfrid slips, his grip loosens - and the price will be paid by a boy who had been borne out of nowhere and will now return to nowhere.

xxxvii.

If it is possible for dragons to stop in motion then Smaug would have been frozen in time. Nothing in his infinite lifetime could have prepared him for this, this heartwrenching, _mortal_ thing that now plagues him as he can only watch the boy fall. He swoops down frantically but he had been too far away. He has been gripped with _fear_ and _anger_ and all of these foreign things that have made him _vulnerable_ inside out.

The smell of blood has never been more putrid to him and he roars in defiance, his flames washing over the horribly cold stones that the insolent dwarves had built, he will burn them to _crisp_ and _tear_ them into pieces until there is _nothing_ left of them in this world, there will be no more Dwarves and there will be no more Men and the only thing the world will know is Smaug and his _anger_.

“Revenge?” He howls, his words driving all those who listen to their knees, “Revenge? I will show you revenge!” He launches himself off the ugly mountain, spittle dropping from his maw, eyes glazed over with rage, disbelief, that for everything Smaug is he has been defeated by death- 

“I am fire.” He roars, beating his massive wings, snout pointed straight for Laketown. “I am _death_.”

xxxviii.

The silhouette of the dragon against the sky, looking reminiscently like an angel. He blots out the clouds, the sun, and descends onto Laketown hailed by fire and smoke.

xxxix.

The children are still at home. Hilda- the children- Bard stumbles and his horse bucks.

“Come.” A strong grip yanks Bard up on top of Thranduil’s elk, and then the Elvenking is dismounting. “A mortal horse cannot outrun a dragon.” He says, and the elk is coursing forward, chasing the paths of fire and smoke.

On the parapet a hobbit presses his back against the stones, trembling as the gravity of the situation grips him tightly. “What have we done?” He asks aloud, and none of his company can answer him.

xl.

By the time Bard returns to Laketown it has already been set aflame. Smaug is a hulking shadow and the lake is burning. “Get to the mountains! Go to Dale!” He cries, helping people onto their boats as he races for his own family.

Hilda and Sigrid have the remaining children in hand, but even as he locks gazes with his beloved across wood and fire and water, he knows what he must do.

Smaug hesitates, just one second, but it’s enough for Bard to pull the bow back and let it sail through the air, and it accomplishes the task its brethren had failed to do lifetimes ago. Bard’s nose is aching, and tears fall down his face, a badge of his sorrow and shame. This is no longer Smaug in front of him, merely a dragon, and dragons were made to be brought down by heroes.

The dragon comes crashing down onto the surface of the water, and a grand tidal waves washes over the land, cleansing it of the sins of its forefathers once and for all.

xli.

He is a man in mourning but his family needs him, his people need him. He guides them to Dale, and the Elvenking, perhaps out of pity, shares their provisions with them and sends back word for more.

Bard makes himself do it, walks calmly up to the ruins of Erebor as Thranduil speaks, gathers the broken body in his arms. Lean and gangly like Bain will one day be, a clever mind destined for great things, too great of things for Bard to comprehend, or so he believes. The boy is- was well-learnt, far beyond Bard or Hilda’s comprehension, far beyond that of Laketown, of Erebor. Now his blood stains the stones of the cage he grew up in.

He had always been- oddly afraid of the dragon-child. Neither he nor his wife had seen this boy as their own son, for that they had raised him, fed him, bathed him. He was never a son to them, no, but he had been a friend to his children, and he had been a good child. That was enough.

The elves part in front of him as he lays the boy in the tent they have given him. Sigrid bursts into tears and dashes to his side, while Bain kneels abruptly, as if all the strings in his body have been cut. Hilda is still clutching Tilda to her, her face ashen, but no tears fall. 

He is a man in mourning.

xlii.

Bard is summoned to the Elvenking’s war tent, a large, extravagant, yet sturdy and fitting affair. Thranduil reclines in his throne across a tall man with a long grey beard, and the odd hobbit that had been part of Oakenshield’s company.

In front of them, in the hobbit’s open palms, is a large gem, iridescent, otherworldly. The treasures of the ancients not meant for mortal eyes.

“The Arkenstone.” He breathes in shock, finally recognising it for what it was. 

xliii.

He had seen it before, of course he had! The dragon’s halls were vast but something like that would not have been able to escape Bard’s attention. It had been an impressive beacon among the treasures the dwarves hoarded, but compared to the mountain of gold, it was nothing more but a particularly beautiful stone lost to a dragon.

It is a strange fate, that they should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing. Such a little thing.

xliv.

“How is this yours to give?” He asks the hobbit. “Why would you do this? You owe us no loyalty.”

The hobbit raises his chin and meets his gaze. “I’m not doing it for you. I know that Dwarves can be obstinate and pigheaded and difficult. And suspicious and secretive with the worst manners you can possibly imagine, but they are also brave and kind and loyal to a fault. I’ve grown very fond of them, and I would save them if I can. But Thorin values this stone above all else. In exchange for its return, I believe he will give you what you were owed. There will be no need for war.”

Thranduil’s eyes narrow. “Oakenshield will not be pleased by what you have done.” Then he relaxes again, reposing in his throne. “It seems that there is honour still to be found among you.”

xlv.

Bard is readying his horse when the hobbit trots up next to him. “Stay back, halfling.” He warns, “You will be safe in Dale.”

“I’m not afraid of Thorin.” The hobbit meets his gaze again, and suddenly Bard is met with grey eyes intelligent and wise beyond their years, as if there are a myriad of worlds captured in that gaze, Bard only one miniscule detail in one of the more dreary and hopeless universes. He blinks and he is met with the hobbit’s warm brown eyes again.

“You should be.” He settles.

The hobbit clears his throat. “You took... the boy, didn’t you? Faramir.”

Bard’s hands stop. “Yes. I did.” He answers. And then, in a lower voice. “It is what I owe Smaug.”

The halfling shuffles his feet nervously. “If I may, if you would allow me, I would like to bring the boy’s ashes with me. Back to the Shire, on the other side of the world. Then he would be able to travel.”

Bard turns to face the hobbit fully, and he realises that his hands are shaking. “Then he would travel,” He echoes, “See the world that was promised to him. You would do that for him?”

The hobbit smiles lightly. He is not that young, after all, for that Bard assumed that he was due to his small stature. There are crow’s feet at the end of his eyes, a certain world-weariness to him, as if he is carrying a burden too heavy. “Burn his mortal vessel and set his soul free,” The hobbit says, “A pyre of wood and oil may be too crude, but the boy isn’t of this world anyway.”

xlvi.

And then there are orcs, there are more dwarves, and a king pays for his errors with the lives of the two boys he perhaps considers his sons, and finally gives up his own as well in the arms of a good friend. These are not events for a man of Bard’s station, and he merely bears witness as Erebor changes and flickers into something he hardly recognises.

As the dust settles the Elvenking looks at him wearily, perhaps a bit fondly like one looks at a favoured pet or something akin to that. Dain, gruff and large and as imposing as Oakenshield, comes to a stop before Bard, proclaiming them allies of the Kingdom of Dale and inviting him in to negotiate peace.

Bard sighs wearily, resigned to his new title as King. “I will not step into Erebor.” King Dain gives him a sharp look, but before his anger makes an appearance, Bard quickly explains himself. “I made a promise that I would not step foot into Erebor again. It was a price I paid gladly.”

xlvii.

When Bilbo leaves he not only leaves with ashes, but also a dragon scale, struck down by King Bard the Dragon-slayer. The others they scatter into the lakes which run into the sea, so the traveller will see distances that not even a dragon could. Bilbo bids a bittersweet farewell to the dwarves he has come to call friends and family, but knows that every story has an end, and this is his. He has wandered for a long time but now he craves for something simpler. His home, one that he desires to return to.

To have gone there and return home again - this will be a story lauded for ages to come.

xlviii.

A lifetime later, at the Houses of Healing, Eowyn watches as a cat with a fire-coloured pelt settles himself on Faramir’s lap. He hisses at Eowyn briefly, but deigns to tilt his head to a side to allow for scritches. “Who is this magnificent creature?” She asks, already charmed.

Faramir smiles, joyous at her pleasure. “This is Smaug, my guardian.” He says, “He has watched over me since I was a young child.”

Eowyn pauses and looks to him with shock. “He must be old, then!” She exclaims, “How come he remains sprightly?”

“I do not know.” Faramir shrugs. “My mother found him in my cot and he has remained since.” Smaug growls then, his amber eyes flashing towards Eowyn’s. But then the growl turns into a purr as Faramir scritches the top of his head, and he curls his tail around Faramir’s arm in satisfaction.

xlix.

So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings.

**Author's Note:**

> tbh i ran out of steam towards the end cus as soon as the fic stopped being about just smaug and faramir i was like -3- dno't wanna write this  
> just want to write dragon/cat dad having fun with his not-normal-man-child
> 
> (also my fav dwarrow is bofur and i think my bias is very clear in this fic oops)  
> (i also messed up the roman numerals like five times while writing it so there might be some that aren't numbered correctly rip)
> 
> hmu on twitter @hornet394


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